The former plaster cast collection of the Budapest Metropolitan Industrial Drawing School (1886–1945)

4 - 25 October 2017FUGA Budapest Center of Architecture

In the 18th and 19th centuries, drawing after plaster casts was not only common academic practice, but was also an integral part of drawing instruction in both general and industrial schools. In a way, a school’s plaster cast collection was a visual encyclopaedia of knowledge about the history of fine and applied art, architecture, mythology, literature, history, botany, anatomy and geometry, reflecting the educational and cultural ideals of the era. This exhibition presents the diverse knowledge of the 19th and early 20th centuries through a selection of plaster casts from the former collection of the Budapest Metropolitan Industrial Drawing School (1886–1945), as well as study drawings made after such casts. During this period, educational establishments in Budapest specialising in the fine arts, architecture and the applied arts bought most of their plaster casts from the casting workshop of the Budapest National Higher Industrial School. The Budapest Metropolitan Industrial Drawing School was no exception, and by

the late 1890s, the school owned approximately 1900 plaster casts. The collection has dwindled significantly since then, and now only about 100 casts remain in the Schola Graphidis Art Collection, managed by the Hungarian University of Fine Arts – High School of Visual Arts. The collection also boasts many drawings of plaster casts, the oldest dating back to the early 19th century; together with the surviving casts, they enable us to build up a picture of the collection’s erstwhile composition. The plaster casting workshop of the Higher Industrial School issued a price list in 1904, illustrated with black-and-white photographs; the method by which this catalogue was organised has largely been followed in this exhibition. In the catalogue, the casts were arranged into 5 series and 17 thematic groups, which have been rearranged into 13 groups and 5 main categories (Style, Floral, Animal, Human, Series) for the purposes of this exhibition.